With ever increasing design demands, flexibility and adaptivity of unibody construction is increasingly required in order to provide vehicles that meet broader customer needs. Increases in the number of components and structures that are coupled to the unibody construction have led designers to consistently add threaded fasteners to the unibody frame. Variation in manufacturing tolerances require that the fastener couple to the unibody frame in a way that allows a degree of positional adjustment during final assembly. This positional adjustment is provided by using a female fastener that is an encaged fastener. Typically, this takes the form of a nut or fastener encaged in a structure that is attached to the inner body frame. The cage is configured to provide the nut with a range of movement so that when a component is coupled to the frame, the alignment of the component and frame can be adjusted until they meet manufacturing standards.
Prior to coupling of the components to the frame, however, the frames typically are painted or coated using electrocoat e-coat or electrodeposition coating processes. To date, the step of electrocoating the frame often results in the electrocoat paint adhering to the fastener or, with a caged fastener, causes the fastener to adhere to the cage. This prevents the fastener from being adjustable within the cage and, therefore, causes tolerance problems in the final assembly of the product. In the case of threaded fasteners, the application of the electrocoat paint to the fastener's threads increases problems in the coupling of a mating fastener. To prevent the tolerance problems, post-process inspection after painting is required to ensure that the fasteners are not adhered to the cage or fastener thread. Should post painting of the threads occur or the fastener become adhered to the cage by the electrocoat coating, post-process rework must be conducted to clean the fastener.